Quaternion Society - Macfarlane

Macfarlane

As the society existed only with each individual, their writings and correspondence, the secretary was the motive force. By the time he steered the society Macfarlane had left the faculties of the University of Texas and Lehigh University. From his home base at Chatham, Ontario he ventured to campuses such as University of Michigan and Lehigh for research and lectures, and to three meetings of the International Congress of Mathematicians. Having been educated in Tait’s Lab in Edinburgh, he was grounded in physical science and, like many others at the time, thought quaternion methods could clarify physical theory. Furthermore, he developed the hyperbolic angle concept which arises naturally in the biquaternions. Macfarlane also fashioned an Algebra of Physics in the form of hyperbolic quaternions. Nevertheless, as Society secretary, he did not use the Bulletin to advance his particular system, but rather let it express the broad spectrum of linear algebra and multilinear algebra coming into existence at that time. In 1913 Macfarlane died, and as related by Dirk Struik, the Society "became a victim of the first World War".